"Close inspection by scuba diving revealed that the structure is made of basalt boulders up to 1 m (3.2 feet) long with no apparent construction pattern," the researchers write in their journal article. "The boulders have natural faces with no signs of cutting or chiselling. Similarly, we did not find any sign of arrangement or walls that delineate this structure."

Umm... doesn't this kind of make the case that this thing is not-at-all a structure?

miss diminutive:The mysterious structure is cone shaped, made of "unhewn basalt cobbles and boulders," and weighs an estimated 60,000 tons, the researchers said. That makes it heavier than most modern-day warships.

Since it is roughly circular, I doubt if it was built as a harbour, pier, or even breakwater. But it could be a ballast dump assuming that ships on the Sea of Galilee needed ballast. Most small fishing boats wouldn't carry ballast, which is typically used by larger ships to keep them from riding too high on the water when they are empty of cargo.

Otherwise it seems kind of pointless. Just a pile of rocks, not even smoothed on the top.

it does recall to mind the "flying saucer" discovered in Swedish waters, but nobody knows whether that is man-made or what it was for, so it is no real help.

Another hypothesis is that it could have been intended as a base for fishing wiers or fish-farming or something similar, but it seems oddly robust. Whatever it might have been created for, it would be a long-term investment of some non-negligible cost.

karmaceutical:"Close inspection by scuba diving revealed that the structure is made of basalt boulders up to 1 m (3.2 feet) long with no apparent construction pattern," the researchers write in their journal article. "The boulders have natural faces with no signs of cutting or chiselling. Similarly, we did not find any sign of arrangement or walls that delineate this structure."

Umm... doesn't this kind of make the case that this thing is not-at-all a structure?

That's what I was thinking. Then the next sentence is, "It's clearly manmade!"

Ok, over-excited archaeologists. So, best case scenario is some people made a pile of rocks.

bdub77:If you read past the 'ooooh we found something that could be a Death Star below the sea' you'll read that apparently these kinds of stone cairns are common and it probably was swallowed up by the sea.

Yup, pretty common. We have LOADS of them in the desert in the South of Namibia.

brantgoose: "Most small fishing boats wouldn't carry ballast, which is typically used by larger ships to keep them from riding too high on the water when they are empty of cargo."

Weren't shipping routes almost all *circuits* back in the day? Would they even have *been* empty with regularity?And wouldn't a ballast dump taper-off more gradually from to center, rather than having fairly-well-defined edges as this thing appears to have?

. . . north of a city that researchers call "Bet Yerah" or "Khirbet Kerak."made me think of the original "Hawaii 5-0" credits that named the Hawaiian actor and his stage name."Kam Fong as Chin Ho""What's the bloody point?"

Everyone said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built it all the same, just to show them. It sank into the swamp. So I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So I built a third. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp...